Cyclist killed in Menlo Park

64 year old Richard Buckley of Redwood City was killed while crossing Bayfront Expressway in Menlo Park, California on Wednesday.

He was crossing at the protected intersection at Chilco Street when the unidentified driver of a Lincoln Town Car ran into him.

According to the Mercury News, police are still investigating this fatal collision.

In the other two fatalities near this location on Bayfront, a driver ran a red light to kill his victim. I worked off of this expressway until just a couple of months ago, and even when I had the green light to cross, I always looked left and right because red light running is routine. After the 2007 death of Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam, the city of Menlo Park installed red light cameras — I see the camera flashes trigger Every Single Time I was at this intersection.

The naysayers claim the lights themselves are unsafe because they’re improperly timed, but that’s only because the large number of speeding maniacs who drive like they’re on a 65 MPH limited access freeway, instead of the expressway with intersections that they’re actually using. The speed limit approaching Chilco on Bayfront is 50 MPH, and the four lane road is wide, flat, and straight with excellent sight lines.